Make a difference and see the world with Thrivent Builds Worldwide.
Help families in your own community with Thrivent Builds Homes.
Thrivent Builds Publicity Newsletter Archive
August 2007
- Best Practices from the Indiana Region: Fund-raising ideas and ways to thank volunteers
- Help celebrate 500 families in homes
- July Media Watch
- Tools you can use: Dedication and Media Trainings
- What's new on www.thriventbuilds.com: Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Experience Needs Leaders! New Ski & Build opportunity in Colorado
- Feedback
- Newsletter Archive
Best Practices from the Indiana Region: Fund-raising ideas and ways to thank volunteers
LCSS-TB Larry Moore gathers best practices on each monthly project call - and he's shared some with youKiss the Pig. Buy a Square Foot. Sell a Stud. On the Level.
Names of childhood board games? Nope - best practices for raising funds and thanking volunteers.
Larry Moore, a new LCSS-TB in the Indiana Region of Thrivent Financial loves great ideas for making his Thrivent Builds projects successful and fun. So he started asking for best practices from the people who would know what works in his area - his Thrivent Chapters and Habitat affiliates.
Each month on the monthly project call, Larry schedules time for a "round robin" when each chapter and affiliate can highlight a brief description of a creative idea that's worked for them. Other chapters and affiliates on the call can then ask for more details about the ideas, and often build off each others' ideas to create fund-raising events and volunteer recognition that have huge success rates.
Larry has shared a collection of fund-raising and volunteer recognition best practices so you, too, can add some creativity to your Thrivent Builds projects.
- Fund-raising Ideas (Word, 2.14MB)
- Ways to Thank Volunteers (Word, 2MB)
Help celebrate 500 families in homes
Send template news release to your local media in October.The 500th Thrivent Builds Home will be celebrated in Pontiac, Michigan on Saturday, October 13, 2007, led by Oakland County Habitat for Humanity and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ Eastern Great Lakes region. It has taken all of our efforts across the country to get to this milestone, though, so we hope you will celebrate this success in your own local area, too!
We will be asking for your help to spread the word by sending out a news release in your local area in October. This is a great chance to share your local build and Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity with your area media, including many of the smaller community newspapers. We also invite you to include this message at all of your October dedications.
The template news release will be sent to each LCSS-TB by Friday, September 21.
We hope that each LCSS-TB will:
- Fill in the appropriate blanks on the template news release
- Attach a list of your media contacts (and media contacts from ASO if requested).
- Send the news release to each Habitat for Humanity affiliate.
- Fill in the appropriate blanks upon receiving the news release from the LCSS-TB.
- Distribute it to the media contacts in early October.
The RFO that receives the most television, radio and newspaper stories as a result of this announcement (excluding the Eastern Great Lakes RF0) will receive $500 gift certificate for Thrivent Builds merchandise. Watch for more details to come!
July Media Watch
Media monitoring efforts for the month of July produced our lowest total to date of 95 media hits. While that number was less than expected, we recognize that July is the height of the building season with most media events such as groundbreakings and wallraisings already completed and dedications still to be planned.
We’re looking forward to an increased number of monthly media hits as we move into fall when dedications are promoted to the media across the country. Here are some tips as you fine-tune your media plan for the remainder of your Thrivent Builds construction projects:
- Don’t forget that there is a dedication news release template on the Thrivent Builds Resources site that will give you a jumpstart on reaching out to your local media.
- Weekly newspapers are always looking for stories to print and are eagerly read by those who receive them. They may well be the perfect fit for your dedication story.
- Don’t have a complete list of contacts for the media outlets in your area? Contact cheryl.winget@thrivent.com or kelsey.peterson@thrivent.com and either Cheryl or Kelsey can quickly produce a comprehensive email list for you.
- The Thrivent Builds communications team is unable to track radio hits, so if your Thrivent Builds project has been promoted on the radio, please let Cheryl or Kelsey know (station call letters, city/state, date, time of day or program name, general description of content) by contacting them directly or adding this information to your PSR.
- July 14, Flint Journal, Flint, MI, "Holy Spirit Lutheran Church Where We Worship," 84,068 circ.
- July 17, KFUO 850 AM Radio, St. Louis, MO, Live interview of Loyal Williams, broadcast from convention of Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod in Houston, TX
- July 26, The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, "Habitat dedicates Kannapolis home," 206,497 circ.
- July 26, News-Tribune, Jefferson City, MO, River City Habitat for Humanity dedicates another home, 16,882 circ.
If you had media successes that are not listed in the report, please send them to Cheryl Winget at cheryl.winget@thrivent.com or Kelsey Peterson at kelsey.peterson@thrivent.com.
Tools you can use: Dedication and Media Training
Numeric shaped cookies. Naming a room. Planting a tree. Building green. Community calendars. People stories.
What do these things have in common? They're all the seeds of some great ideas you can get when you check out the latest online publicity trainings. The last two Webinars in our online publicity training series now are complete - just in time as many of you are coming up on dedications this fall.
Making the Most of Your Dedications and Media 101 are both availalee on the Resources site, under the "Search Web-based training by topic" menu, on the Publicity page.
Remember that there are other short publicity training Webinars to help give you ideas to add to the great work you're doing to promote Thrivent Builds in your area. Topics include:
- Successful Branding
- Volunteer Recruitment
- Fund-raising
- Groundbreaking
What's new on thriventbuilds.com: Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Experience Needs Leaders! New Ski & Build opportunity in Colorado
Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Experience
The Gulf Coast Experience trips still need recruiters to help organize teams. If you'd like to recruit a team of volunteers to help rebuild the Gulf Coast this fall, be sure to check out the online information and sigh up today!
Recruiting materials are also available:
- Flier (PDF 684K)
- Bulletin Insert (PDF, 81K)
- Newsletter Text (Word, 46K)
Combine the joy of working alongside partner families to build simple, decent affordable homes with the fun of a ski vacation. The new Thrivent Builds Worldwide Ski & Build in Denver, Colorado will be held this December. Be sure to sign up for a week of fun and heart-filled volunteering.
Feedback
Is this newsletter helpful to you? Do you have additional ideas for articles you'd find helpful? Please send your feedback to Nicole Doebert.
Newsletter Archive
If you would like to read previous issues of the Thrivent Builds newsletter, simply access the Newsletter Archive from this link or from the left navigation bar.